TRONDHEIM, NORWAY, A CITY OF 180,000 JUST 200 miles from the Arctic Circle on the coast of the frigid Norwegian Sea, hardly seems an ideal location for harvesting energy from the sun and surrounding environment. But a new 200,000-square-foot office building there is producing nearly half a million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy per year-twice as much as the building uses. The extra energy is powering other nearby buildings and charging electric cars, buses and boats throughout the city.
Highly sustainable buildings have been popping up around the U.S. and the world over the past decade. But now a confluence of new technologies and improving economics, as well as climate-change-inspired government regulation, are leading to the next wave in big construction: ultra-sustainable buildings. This new generation of green buildings is hitting environmental goals that would have seemed inconceivable just 10 years ago in some cases not just avoiding all harm to the environment, but actually improving it, leading the communities and cities around these buildings down greener paths.
These futuristic-seeming buildings promise to close a yawning gap in the world's efforts to slow climate change and mitigate its harms. About 40 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from the heating, cooling and lighting of buildings not including substantial emissions from the construction of conventional buildings. Sharply curtailing these emissions is an essential part of fighting climate change.
Zero Emissions Energy
Denne historien er fra September 22, 2023-utgaven av Newsweek Europe.
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Denne historien er fra September 22, 2023-utgaven av Newsweek Europe.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Falling for Romance
A new book, Nora Ephron at the Movies, celebrates the writer/director best known for her iconic rom-coms and strong female characters
Cracking the Norse Code
Walrus DNA has shown that Vikings were likely the first to have encountered Indigenous North Americans
Monumental Shift
The discovery of 165-million-year-old crystals Easter Island has upended the longheld notion of how the Earth's \"conveyor belt\" moves
'OUR FOREIGN POLICY AND DOMESTIC REFORMS ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN'
It is a well-known fact across the globe that the North Korean regime is irrational and unpredictable, but we have been consistent in strengthening our defense posture against the threat from North Korea since the Korean War, and I believe that their conventional capability is much inferior to that of the Korean military.
'They Read My Eulogy As I Lay in an Open Grave'
Like Paris Hilton, Natasia Pelowski claims she was subjected to abuse at a teenage therapy program
Russian Economy Faces 'Burnout'
Vladimir Putin admits difficulties” as the country’s key interest rate reaches a historic high
China's 'Silent Chemical War'
The U.S. must investigate Beijing's role in the manufacturing of fentanyl that is killing Americans, says one mom whose daughter died after accidentally taking the illicit substance
HARSH HEADWINDS
President Yoon Suk Yeol's BATTLE to reform a South Korea beset with structural problems under the specter of an increasingly aggressive neighbor to THE NORTH
Bridget Everett
BRIDGET EVERETT NEVER THOUGHT SHE'D BE THE LEAD OF A TV SHOW. \"I come from the downtown world in New York, a cabaret singer, and these things just don't happen, you don't find yourself with three seasons of HBO.
Amber Ruffin
A LATE-NIGHT COMEDY SHOW ON CNN? YES, and it's a game show, too.
